A Rock and a Sad Place

The other day at the park my nephew had a wreck. He was jumping off the side of the slide (because as any fool knows slides are not just for sliding down) when he was sabotaged by a glitch in coordination.  It wasn’t a bad fall; he only had a couple superficial scrapes to show for it. But there were a ton of people around.

After we clean him up, he decides he wants to do one more slide before we leave, but he chooses the smallest slide and goes down halfheartedly, and it’s all very sad. On the way to our next stop we discuss whether it still hurts, which he tells me it does not, and whether he’s embarrassed which he also denies.

But he’s still tremendously sad.

Eventually it occurs to me that “embarrassed,” may not be a word most people are familiar with when they’re three, so I ask him if he’s sad because all those people saw him fall and he says, “yes.”

Now I’m pissed off at those people for existing, because I feel like Z wouldn’t be upset right now if they didn’t, and what right do they have to be wandering around the park with their eyes anyway? On the other hand this is hideously unreasonable, and I’m really just pissed off at myself for not catching him.

“It’s ok,” I say to him. “None of those people were laughing at you. Everybody falls. I fall, and your mom and dad fall, and Ben falls, and all those people at the park have fallen too, I promise.”

Pointing out the misfortunes of others is perhaps not the most inspiring method of comforting a child, but it’s what came to mind. And still, he was bummed.

We get to the arts festival, but only kind of, because we have to park far away. We start walking, well I start walking, and I’m carrying a sad three year old, a heavy, sad three year old, and I think the sadness is making him heavier than usual. When we finally get there he doesn’t want to go in. He says he wants to sit. So we sit. On the curb outside the arts festival.

He says, “Don’t look at me, please,” and I oblige.

 He picks up a rock. I ask him about the colors in his rock. We discuss that for awhile.

So there we are, sitting on the curb, not looking at each other, discussing rocks instead of feelings. It’s like I’m participating in some kind of weird male bonding moment. I didn’t know three year olds could have such man moments.

I texted his mom for backup. She suggested an uplifting lesson on what the word “embarrassed,” means. That sounded promising, he likes to learn new words. Like “evolution.” But embarrassed is not a fun word to learn when you are.

He would seem better for a while then get sad again. That happens to me too, but I get to drink. And if he was twelve I would have offered him one.  

It turned out that his arm is sprained. When I found that out, I had a guilt headache for two days. But I’m better now, and more importantly, so is he. Feel free to call me with babysitting requests.

Scars Are Sexy (But Not When You're Three)

I got my nephew a skateboard for Christmas. That was the easy part. The question of knee and elbow pads was far more controversial. The debate raged on for weeks.  It was between the me that is so protective of him that I want to knock down other kids at the park if they look at him wrong, and the me that wants him to be a little tough, and a little rebellious, and knock those kids down himself.

                That’s the me that says, “Scars are sexy right? They’re cool badges of honor for shit you’ve done, and you get to wear them right on your skin.”

The other me counters with, “If he hurts himself he could be so traumatized that he’ll never enjoy the skateboard or anything else.”

And then I’m all, “I don’t want him to be hurt unnecessarily, but I don’t want him to be deprived of cool scar stories. Plus scars give you something fun to talk about after the first time you sleep with somebody.”

I respond with a shocked, “I hope you’re talking about his wife on his wedding night.”

Then we laugh because neither myself, nor I are uptight about sex. Of course there’s a fine line between protecting a kid and not letting them have any fun. To those parents that make their kids wear knee pads and helmets to the park to play, you have gone too far. Your kids are not going to be ok when they grow up. I’m sorry, but they’re not. And they’re going to hate you.  

Not wanting him to grow up hating me because he’s scar-less, I decided against the pads, but then there was the couch incident. It is riotously fun to stand on the arm of the couch and flop onto the cushions. I was alarmed when this game first began, but it’s been going on for quite a while and he’s gotten really good at not killing himself with the couch. So my guard was way down when he went off the arm of the couch backwards and whacked the crap out of himself on both the table and the floor.

It was all very traumatic for both of us and there were tears, and an icepack, and finally a cookie which brought the wailing down to a whimper, and then he had to stop crying altogether so he could demand more cookies. I felt like a terrible watcher and it became obvious to both of me that he doesn’t need help collecting cool scars. We all have them, no matter how much our parents and super-cool aunts tried to prevent it. So I went ahead and got him the damn pads, but not the helmet, because real men can take a head injury.

Of course, so far nothing has convinced him to put them on.

            P.S. As of this post, neither of us has actually knocked another kid down. 

I Don't Want Anyone to Die Because of This

I almost just killed a bunch of people because I’m tired and I don’t feel like getting up in the morning. In my defense I also have cramps, but that’s no justification. However, it would totally have been an accident.

I spend Thursdays with my nephew which is generally awesome. But in spite of the awesome, sometimes when Thursday rolls around, I’m fucking tired. I know I should seize the day, and treasure every moment, because soon he’s going to be older and way too cool to hang out with his aunt, unless it’s his other aunt who’s only like seven years older than he is, but definitely not the aunt who’s like twenty years older than he is, ok thirty years older, ok anyone who is doing math in their head right now, just stop it. (Hi Z! Love you, love our days together, don’t take this personally, fuck it you can’t read yet, so you probably won’t ever read this, unless someday when I’m dead, you want to know a little more about me because you didn’t know me very well, since you spent all your time hanging out with your young, fun aunt.) I mean, they’ll probably be going to the same parties or something.

 I know. It’s admirable that I’m secure enough to admit that I feel threatened by a twelve year old girl. It’s just that I feel a little possessive sometimes. Even though I know I don’t have first claim and I’m totally fine with that. Obviously, the people who chipped in the raw materials get first dibs, that’s just how it works. Plus there’s the whole issue of me being tired on my one day a week, so if I had all the days, every day of every week… just… wow...

Anyway, I think we’ve mined that tangent, which brings us to where I kill people with my mind. Unfortunately, it’s not in an amazing River Tam kind of way. So the night before Zander day (yes that’s what I call it, he obviously calls it “Anne day”), I was tired and I was wishing I didn’t have to get up the next morning, then I thought, what if my wish comes true in some sort of drastic, horrible, monkey’s paw fashion. What if in like half an hour, I find out that everyone was killed on the freeway on the way home from Disneyland, and by the way, the other aunt was with them at Disneyland so it would really be a two birds monkey’s paw, so now four people are dead because I wished it, because that’s the only way I wouldn’t have to get up in the morning. Except it’s not the only way, and I don’t know why the monkey’s paw can’t see that, and of course, I didn’t actually wish all the deaths. Not any of the deaths. The imaginary deaths.

 I mean my sister could have gotten a sore throat or something and stayed home from work, not that I’m wishing a sore throat on my sister, that would also be horrible, although obviously not as horrible as the freeway thing. Except, I wonder if the sore throat would be worse on some level if I had actively wished it on her. Probably not, because it’s hard to top death. Plus she’d opt for the sore throat. Definitely. Although to clarify, I do not wish her or anyone else a sore throat. Or death.

That’s not true. I might wish sore throats on some people. 

Second, Do No Harm

I don’t like to share. I don’t like people to touch my fucking shit, I don’t like people to borrow my shit, I don’t even like people to see my shit. I want to be someone who likes to share, who says, “Oh here, take mine,” and really means it, because those are such nice people, except, that they actually make me feel shitty about myself, so maybe they’re bad people deep down. Maybe they shove their lending and their niceness down your throat so you feel horrible about the fact that you don’t want to loan your books out because you never get them back. Nobody gives books back. I don’t. Sometimes I do eventually, but not for a really long time. They sit on my bookshelves until they become emotionally attached to my books and then they can’t leave because it would be too traumatic for everyone.

Also, sometimes stuff gets broken or lost, which brings me to my next point, using the word “point” fairly loosely.

I spend every Thursday with my nephew. (It used to be Fridays, which is not relevant, but since I’m not going to lend you anything, I can at least give you accuracy where possible.) This started when he was six months old or so, I’m not really sure (where possible), let’s just say once a week for roughly three years. He’s irreplaceable. It took nine months and literal blood, sweat and tears to make him. I won’t let my autographed copy of American Gods leave the house and my sister lets me take her child. She doesn’t even instruct me. I mean, I’ve been doing it for a while now, but even the very first time she didn’t do much more than point out the formula. She didn’t tell me not to drop him on his head, which I imagined doing every time I carried him for like a year. At least. Not imagined in a wishful way, you understand, but in a nightmarish way. In my head, I would trip walking down the hallway, and the floors are tile so there would be nothing soft to drop the baby on and probably I would end up falling on top of him and crushing him anyway, so it wouldn’t really matter that the floors weren’t soft. But there was never a, “Don’t drop the baby,” or “Don’t leave him alone in the car/dryer/tub,” or even, “Don’t let him suck on a knife,” which, ok, any adult should know, but still. She just handed over her very best thing and trusted me. To me, that is amazing.

                You’re probably thinking, ‘Her sister lets her borrow a baby, a firstborn only son and she won’t let her borrow a fucking book?’ Well, I will let her borrow a fucking book. I often offer to lend her books. The fact that I have a copy of her house key and therefore the ability to repo any book at any time hardly crosses my mind. If you’re wondering why I suddenly got onto books it’s because all my favorite things are books or dogs…not that dogs are things, and not that I’d lend them. And not that my nephew is a thing either. Don’t make a big deal about the order there; it was a random train of thought.

It may be appropriate to put some trust of my own into the world to pay it forward, although I hated that movie and swore never to be nice to anyone after I saw it. Sometimes things strike me in ways that I’m sure were not intended. In spite of that, this is a call to put more trust in humanity, well some humanity, and I’ll see how it goes. Don’t worry, I’m only calling myself, unless you want to be called, it’s your decision. And for the record, I’m totally generous with my crappy stuff.